Movie review: 'Boundaries' is a road trip to nowhere

By Al Alexander/For the Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Jul 5, 2018 at 5:41 AM

Does it get any worse than Christopher Plummer repeatedly broaching the subject of soiling his adult diapers? Depends. If it’s in the insipid “Boundaries,” it can get a heck of a lot more distressing watching high-caliber actors reciting words from a third-rate script that -- despite the title -- knows no bounds when it comes to spewing juvenile humor. Funny, it’s not. It’s more like being stuck in the back seat of a Beetle on an 1,100-mile drive from Seattle to Los Angeles.

In fact, “Boundaries” is exactly that, except that a vintage gold Rolls subs for the VW and instead of the back seat we’re in the unenviable position of looking in through the windshield -- like a bug that’s just gone splat against the glass. At least the insect dies instantly; we’re very much alive for the 104 minutes of torture that awaits with Shana Feste behind the wheel. She’s driven us off the road before in such chintzy vehicles as “The Greatest” (Hated it!), “Country Strong” (Really hated it!). Oh, and she actually took credit for writing the script for the “Endless Love” remake. Can you believe that?

Believe it, my friend. If you ask me, Feste should have her word-processing privileges rescinded immediately, ditto for her flat, clichéd directing style, which seldom ranges beyond point and shoot. Her worst crimes are reserved for her actors. How she managed to dupe Plummer and Vera Farmiga into this drivel is a marvel. But she doesn’t stop there. She also drags down the reputations of counterculture icons Peter Fonda -- behaving as if Wyatt from “Easy Rider” had lived and sold out to the man -- and Christopher Lloyd, looking and sounding like a geriatric Reverend Jim from “Taxi,” by getting them good and stoned.

While we’re on the subject of pot, I should tell you that the magical weed plays a major role in these shenanigans because Plummer’s octogenarian, Jack Jaconi, grows and distributes the stuff -- in his Seattle retirement community. Put that in your bong and smoke it. Trouble is, the folks at the old-folks home don’t take kindly to such malfeasances and are giving him the boot. With no other place to go, he asks his single-mom daughter, Laura (Farmiga working way under her talent level), if he can live with her and her budding Vargas son, Henry (a solid Lewis MacDougall), who likes to draw lewd nudes of his fuddy-duddy teachers.

Daughter and dad are estranged, you know; and like Laura tells her shrink, she really wants nothing to do with the old buzzard. So Laura does the only thing she can do, which is to foist him off onto her little sister, JoJo (a wasted Kristen Schaal), in Los Angeles. Thus, the road trip; taken in painful fits and starts in the aforementioned Rolls, which belongs to Jack, as does the several pounds of high-grade chronic in the trunk. I assume it’s because of that precious cargo that they keep the 420 off the I-5, opting instead to make the journey entirely on backroads; all the better to allow for encounters with a host of quirky characters culled from central casting. That includes Laura’s ex, Leonard (Bobby Cannavale), a lout who -- wouldn’t you know it -- is selfish, neglectful and unfaithful, just like Jack.

The reason we’re really here, though, is the need for us to watch father and daughter sort out their 40-year war and finally find peace amid the cannabis buds. But many a mile and dirty Depends must be tossed aside before the inevitable happens just before it’s time for Laura and Henry, who is also oddly along for the ride as Jack’s blunt buddy, to return home to Seattle. In between, many a candle and joint are burned before Laura and Jack realize the thing that’s been keeping them apart is … I’m not really sure. Feste forgets to add that in. She also omits charm, cleverness and imagination. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen in a dozen other road movies -- just this year.

From “Kodachrome” to “The Leisure Seeker,” these stale tales have pretty much worn out their welcome -- and our patience. Unless you’ve got something new to bring to the highway, keep your stories at home away from classic cars and jokes about cancer and pedophilia. You’re better off staying in and watching your own dysfunctional family squabble and act petty. At least there you won’t have to look at 79-year-old Lloyd in the nude. Which leads one to ask: Where are the adult diapers when you need them?